SharePoint 2013 Site Closure

I am working on SharePoint Server 2013 and just learnt about Site Closure or Closing a Site. What a great addition to the site management. This new feature allows an administrator to define a Site Policy to close or delete sites on a schedule.

To configure Site Closure you first have to make a Site Policy in the top level site settings under Site Collection Administration.

In the Site Policies page you can click create to make a Site Policy. When you create a Site Policy you have these options available to you.

The first radio button selection, "Do not close or delete site automatically", is purely so you can have the Site Collection be read only when it is closed.
If you select the second radio button "Delete sites automatically" you get more options.

As you can see, the site can be deleted automatically on a schedule based on either the Site closed date, or the Site created date.
If you choose the last radio button, "Close and delete sites automatically", you get one more schedule option available to you.

Now the site can be closed on schedule and deleted on schedule.

Once one or more Site Policies have been created you apply the policies to the existing sites using the Site Closure and Deletion link on the Site Settings page under Site Administration.

On the Site Closure and Deletion page you can close the site based on the policy you select at the bottom of the page.   To delete the site manually you need to go back to Site Setting and click Delete This Site under Site Actions.

So as you can see, it is a simple feature but enables the SharePoint administrators far greater control over removal of sites in a typical user site creation scenario.

In addition to the above Site Policy settings, you can enable Self-Service Site Creation forcing users to select a Site Policy to apply to their site. Finally we have the ability to clean the unused sites out of SharePoint without a delete only option as in the past.